LADIES' COLUMN.

Waikato Argus, Volume VI, Issue 406, 4 March 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

LADIES' COLUMN.

WORDS FOR WOMEN. Don't allow yourself to become a faddist. Selfishness is at the bottom of all fads and faddists. Don't become a faddy woman, for she is most uncomfortable and difficult to live with. . ... Don't make your children tho victims of faddy hygienio notions about their bringing up. Don't make jour own digestive organs the objects of your fads and experiments, or you will become a social nuisance. Don't go miles to buy a yard of ribbon or a couplo of fowls that you may save sixpence, forgetting that the journey costs you far more. Don't be faddy over small domestic economies and while cheerfully seeing your guests empty decanters and cigarboxes, feel offended if they help themselves twice to salt. There is an exquisite charm about a neatly-dreßsed woman. She does not wear her hair twisted up oarelessly, as if just about to fall over her shoulders. Her gloves are not ripped at the seams or any buttons missing from her boots.j Her veil does not reveal a hole over her chin, nor does the binding of her skirt show ragged in places. Not many women show their tidiness in all these little details, but it is a pleasuro to meet the girl or woman who is, to use a slang term, "well groomed." The cloth gown of such a woman fits her without a crease, and there is neither Bpeck nor spot on it. Her linen collar and cuffs are snowy white, and remain properly fixed iu their places. Her gloves do not wrinkle, but button smoothly over her wrists. Her shoes are kept clean and polished. Her bonnet or hat is pinned on straight, and her bair is neatness itself, She is the piotureof delicate finish and wholesome order. Would that we oould come across her somewhat oftener.

Mothers do not sufficiently respect the kitchen rights of their servants in many households. They allow the children to worry the cook, to carry off domestic implements for play, to get the kitchen in disorder, and even to intrude at the rare times when the servant is privileged to receive her friends. This is all wrong, but some short-sighted mistresses will part with a good oook Booner than restrict their children's liberty in this respeot. There ought to be a golden mean for the good of all paries. It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the danger to little ones when cooking is going on. Only a short while back a friend's beautiful little girl was disfigured for life while playing about the kitchen. She ran up against the cook and got the boiling contents of »frying*pan oTether face. If yoa want to know whether a woman is well-dressed or not look at her shoes and stockings. Nothing betrays a woman's daintiness or lack of it, as these two, which are often too little considered. Now, a true lady, however shabby her gown, will be neat, and about her feet she is most fastidious of all. She is sure to buy the best foot-gear she can afford, for she knows perfectly that cheapness here is poor economy. For country wear nothing looks neater than well-made black or tan leather boots, with Btraight toecaps, the boots coming well up the leg and neatly laced. Some people prefer boots with buttons instead of laces, but they do not afford the same support to the ankles, and are more apt to get trodden over and out of shape after a short period of wear. Nothing is more serviceable than black thread or merino stookings. Good quality should always be the great consideration in ohoosing them, and then they shuold bo kept ueatly mended. Indeed, in buying anything of this desription, oroose always a good quality. You will find they last as long again and retain their good appearance to the end, ENJOY YOUR CHILDREN. " Never mind," said the would-be consoler to a tired mother, who had said that her four little children had quite worn her out that day—' never mind; you will enjoy yeur childrem more t> and tbey will be less trouble, when they grow older." •' Oh, I enjoy them now, was the quick response of the tired little mother. "I believe in enjoying everything in this life as one goes along, and I do not want nor expeot a time to come when my children will not be, in a certain sense, a care to me. It would take a great deal of sweetness out of life if, as I once heard a mother say, the time should come when * I never give a thought to my children, beoause they are old enough to look out for themselves, I find that my care increases as my children grow older, but then my pleasure in them increases in a corresponding ratio." She was a wise mother, and they are wise parents who enjoy their children as they "go along," without hoping or expecting that the time will come when they will "enjoy their children more" because they will be " less trouble." A writer with very clear perceptions has said—" Children are more and more interesting as they grow older; at all stages, from babyhood to manhood and womanhood, they are to be daily enjoyed. People who think they shall enjoy their children to-morrow, or tho year after next, will never enjoy them. The greatest pleasure in them comes late; for, as Hammreton mentions in his ' Human Intercourse,' the most equisite satisfaction of the parent is to come to respect and admire the powers and character of the child."

They are wise parents whose companionship with their children begins at the hour of the child's birth. It ia dangerous to defer it until the child is older. " He will soon be old enough to become a pleasure to you," said a lady to the parents of a beautiful little boy, lees than six years old. " He had been old enough for that all of his little life." was the reply. Every child that comes into the world " through the golden gate of love " is a pleasure to its parents from the time its first shrill little cry stirs into life the father's love and the mother's love that outlasts all other passions. RECIPES. Apple Shape.—Put a pound of sugar to a half pint of water, boil and skim ; add one pound of pared apples, quartered, and boil until tender and clear. Then add the juice of two lemons and the yellow lind (grated) of one of them ; press through a sieve, together with half a box of gelatine, previously dissolvod. Stir until cool. Separate four eggs, beat the whites to a stiff froth and mix it with the fruit syrup when sufficiently thickened and cool in a mould. The yolks of the eggs make the sauce. To Preserve Tomatoes—Ax Excellent Receipt.—Three parts fill a Btonewaro or glazed earthenware jar with water, and dissolve in it enough salt to make a brine strong enough to float an egg. Into this, pack as many ripe and perfectly sound tomatoes as the wator will cover, plaoing over them a reversed deep plate to press the fruit down and prevent its riHing to the surface. Thus stored, tomatoes will keep for a considerable time without any further attention. Before using them soak in fresh water for a few hours. Durham Cake.—Tako lib apples, lib sugar, \ pint water, 1 lemon, 2 teacupsful flour, 1 teaspoonful soda, 1 teaspoonful cream of tartar, 3 eggs; pare and core the apples, cut them in small pieces; place in a saucepan the water and half of the sugar ; allow them to boil; then add the apples; grate over the lemond rind squeeze over the juice ; cook these all together slowly until the apples are tender ; draw the saucepan then from the fire, and let the mixture cool; mix in a largo basin the remainder of the sugar and flour ; add the soda and cream of tartar, in another basin, beat the eggs till very light; pour them over the flour and sugar, and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon; grease flat tins j; pour

half of tho mixture into each ; spread the mixture smoothly ; then bake in a quick ovon 7 minuteß; turn them out, ana when cold spread over one round the apt)lo mixture ; place over it tho remaining half; sprinkle thickly with white BUgar j cut into convenient pioces and serve cold, Bee? Steak Pie.—Take l J t lblean boef, pepper and salt, 1 dessertspoon flour ; cut tho moat into thin slices, mix the flour, pepper, and salt on a plate, dip the slices of moat iu, and roll them up, rolling the fat inside. Put the meat in a small pio dish, piling it as high as possible in the centre, pour in as much cold water as will come half way up the dish. Alternate layers of meat and cold or parboiled potatoes can be used when a larger and more economical pie is required than meat alone would mako. F*.r the paste take £lb flour, |ib dripping or lard, £ teaspoon baking powder, -)■ teaspoon salt ; put the flour into a basin, and mix in with it the salt and baking powder ; mix all lightly into a firm paste with a little cold water ; flour the board, turn the paste out on to it, and work until smooth, flour the rolling pin and rolUhe paste out into a long strip. After it is rolled out spreal half the dripping on the paste, fold over and roll it out again, spread the remainder of the dripping on, fold the paste over and roll again; fold in three turn round with the rough edges towards you, and roll over again ; repeat the folding and rolling three times ; roll out paste a little larger than the top of the pie-dish, cut off a rim of the paste to line the edge of the dish, wet all round the edge of the dish with cold water, lay on the strip of paste, wetting the edges where they join, and press lightly; wet this paste edge and lay on the cover, press it lightly down, and trim off the rough edges ; notch the edge of the pie witli a knife, work tlie rough paste together, roll out thinly and cut~out leaves and ornaments for the top of the pie, make a hole in the centre, brush the top over with milk, lay on leaves, &c, and bru3h with milk also. Put the pie in the hottest part of the oven, first to raise the paste, then iu a cooler part to cook the meat. A small pie will take about one and a half hour.